Official Web site now bait

April 13, 2009|By Andy ReidStaff Writer

Missing just one keystroke can turn into a computer nightmare when trying to find Palm Beach County's government Web site.

Leaving out the first "." in www.pbcgov.com lands unwitting visitors on a hoax site. Making the wrong move on that site could enable hackers and spammers to secretly take over a computer, using it to send viruses and mass e-mails without the owner knowing.

"It's a Trojan horse in there for them to take over your machine," said Michael Butler, county director of network services. "It gives them a back door into your machine."

This is a common tactic used by spamming operations searching for ways to send out mass advertisements and dodge spam-blocking software, said Steve Bordelon, county director of information systems services.

The problem is the computer user hit with the "Trojan horse" doesn't know his or her machine is being used. Eventually, those mass e-mails can get that computer user labeled a spammer by software systems. Then legitimate e-mail sent from that person ends up getting blocked as spam.

In addition, the hoax site can allow spyware to sneak onto a computer, tracking all Web visits. The record of those visits gets sold to companies that then bombard the computer user with ads, Bordelon said.